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“I’ve wondered when someone was going to call me. I’ve given up on that woman calling me back, but I’m thrilled someone actually gives a shit enough to come and talk to me.” Her voice drips with disgust.
“I’m confused. I was told that you refused to speak to The Wildes. That Mrs. Wilde had reached out to you and had her efforts rebuffed.”
“That’s a lie. But considering the source, I’m not surprised. I’ve called her every day since I got home.” She pulls her phone out and scrolls through it.
Then, she hands it to me. “Here, look. I’m not tech savvy enough to know how to fake that.” I take the phone from her. Sure enough, her outgoing calls are interspersed with several listed to a T Wilde.
I shake my head, my mind boggled. Why would Tina pretend Gigi had refused to talk to them?
She laughs dryly. I look up and she’s watching me with beautiful hazel eyes that, in contrast to the small smile she’s wearing, are very sad.
“You must not know her.”
“Oh, I know her. But it’s been a long time,” I confess.
“She’s done so much lying over the last few years, she’s forgotten how to tell the truth. Trust me. It takes someone who has done the very same thing to recognize it. She doesn’t know what’s false and what’s true anymore.”
I look at her with a knowing understanding.
“So, Remington’s skipped out on his family, huh? The girl who comes in to do my hair told me she’d heard gossip that he’d gone walkies,” she muses but doesn’t offer anything else. I smile and try to appear patient.
“I understand you’re the last person to see him before he left.”
“Was I? I hadn’t heard that. I have no idea what was going on because no one in that family will talk to me.”
I swallow back a frustrated growl and smile. “Will you tell me what happened with Remington when you saw him?”
“I could. But then, I’d be telling a story that’s not mine to tell. My nephew, Hayes, and Remington—they are the ones who will have to tell you the story.”
My gut twists when I realize that Remi, somehow, is mixed up in whatever is happening with the Rivers family.
“Do you think Hayes will speak with me?” I ask, hopefully.
“Why don’t you just ask Remi?” she asks in a voice now full of skepticism.
“Because no one knows where he is,” I remind her.
She angles away from me, her arms folded tightly across her chest, and narrows her eyes at me. “How did you say you knew him?”
I sit up straighter. Give her what I hope is a convincing smile.
“We were friends when I was in high school. Good friends. We’ve lost touch over the years. But now that I’ve heard that he’s missing, I want to try to find him.”
She gives an assessing glance and then pulls out her phone. “You are a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying. I am really just trying to find Remi.”
“Enid, I’m ready to go. Please come down.”
“Please.”
“No. Please leave. I don’t know what you really want. But, I can’t help you.”
“You naughty girl. I can’t believe you have the nerve to show your face in here after the way you disappeared.” Sweet’s loud voice envelops me in an embrace nearly as warm as the one she’s giving me with her arms.
“I’m sorry, Sweet. It wasn’t up to me.”
“That mother of yours,” she says without a hint of acrimony as she lets me go.
